LEXINGTON, Ky. – It is getting past midnight, Saturday turning into Sunday, and the audience at Rupp Arena is down to a fraction of what it had been as Kentucky soared through a game it had to have, and an overtime period it had to have in order to have that game. There still are plenty of Wildcats fans lingering to listen as coach John Calipari discusses the struggle he has endured in dealing with this particular UK team. For their devotion, they are rewarded.

Calipari had talked his way through a fairly lackluster news conference, revealing little about why Kentucky had been different in its 90-83 Southeastern Conference victory over the Missouri Tigers. Now, though, he would share with those waiting around in Rupp to hear the postgame radio show over the loudspeakers, and those driving home hearing it on their radios, exactly what his primary mission has been with the successors to his 2012 NCAA championship team.

“It’s hard to get guys out of how they are playing, to think about how we are playing.”

And there you have it. That’s the statement that defines the Kentucky season. There is no way for the Wildcats (19-8, 10-4) to get to where they want this season to end, in the NCAA Tournament, if forward Alex Poythress is worried about Calipari harping on him to play with greater passion; if shooting guard Archie Goodwin is vexed by the coach’s complaints about his too-frequent mental errors; if point guard Ryan Harrow is retreating from the challenges a high-profile, high-major player is going to face.

On this night, however, they were exactly the – dare we say it? – team they needed to be. Yes, they were a team. They were not a collection of McDonald’s All-Americans and projected lottery picks.

They were a team that gang-rebounded their way to a minor edge in that category, that passed for 16 assists on 30 field goals. This Kentucky team worked together to attempt every defensive tactic feasible and still yielded 27 points to Mizzou point guard Phil Pressey. And they also were the team that was ready to seize on the mistakes Pressey made at crunch time of yet another SEC game.

“They played with toughness, way more aggressive than us,” Missouri coach Frank Haith said. “In the second half, I think they got to every loose ball, every 50/50 ball.”

Make no mistake, Kentucky was playing for its season here. The impact of injured center Nerlens Noel’s absence on the Wildcats’ postseason ambitions was bound to be two-fold; there would be greater attention paid to what sort of team they would be without him blocking shots and boosting the team with his energy, and it would be harder to be a significant team without those qualities.

And they were not a dead-solid-lock tournament team even with Noel. They entered the Missouri game with an 0-4 record against the Ratings Percentage Index top 50. Only four of their 18 previous wins were over top-100 teams.

So you bet this was one they needed. Missouri (19-8, 8-6) was 34th on the RPI scale. This became their first true resume win. On Saturday they will visit Arkansas, where the Razorbacks have lost just once this season, and that would be another jewel to get. They finish the regular season with a March 9 visit from Florida. In between are games against Georgia and Mississippi State that cannot be squandered.

“We knew it was all on us. We had to come together and get on the same page. We had to trust each other or we’re not going to make it,” said guard Julius Mays, who led Kentucky with 24 points.

“We’re not looking ahead to the NCAA Tournament. We control our own destiny, but we are taking it a game at a time and not overlooking anybody. We do what we need to do, we’ll be rewarded in the end. All we’re thinking about is the next team. The NCAA Tournament is not on Wednesday. We play Mississippi State.”

Mays had been indispensable in Kentucky’s exhumation from a 30-point defeat last Saturday at Tennessee, its first game following the Noel disaster. Even as Noel sat on the bench, UK still got nearly half its minutes from the three high-profile freshmen who remain: Goodwin, Poythress and center Willie Cauley-Stein. They need some sort of leadership from inside their team.

Calipari was thrilled when, after Harrow rejected a ball screen in favor of a different option, Mays waved to Calipari to quit trying to correct that mistake from the bench, that he would handle it on the court. “It’s better that way, coming from a teammate,” Calipari said. “They’re starting to be empowered, and if they’re empowered they’re going to be better. That’s what you’re starting to see.” Which is not to say Kentucky has this thing kicked. Oh, far from it. The Wildcats fell behind in the first half by 13 points and looked like they were in jeopardy of repeating the Tennessee debacle. They had a 5-point lead with 3:36 left in regulation and pretty much let Pressey wipe that out himself.

After Pressey missed a layup in a tie-game that Mays rebounded with about 6 seconds left, he dribbled upcourt with no sense of how much time was remaining and not only missed a wide-open Goodwin for what would have been the game winning layup, he stopped near midcourt with more than 2 seconds remaining and heaved the ball at the rim.

It didn’t seem particularly invigorating that Poythress, after delivering a masterpiece featuring 21 points and 7 rebounds in 40 minutes of playing time – not long ago, Calipari wouldn’t have wanted to play him 40 minutes in a week – was so averse to introspection or even to shoving that performance in the face of his critics.

“I just tried to make plays,” he said several times.

Still so much to fix.

“What I’ve been trying to tell them all year: Guys, if you miss a shot, or commit a turnover, or break down defensively, just keep battling,” Calipari said. “We did a lot of that today. It’s OK. Just keep playing. We had some bad turnovers late in regulation, but we just kept going. Two weeks ago, those turnovers would have led us to let go of the rope.

“The biggest thing is they had a collective will to win today.”

There’ve been a lot of adjectives and adverbs used to describe this group of Kentucky Wildcats. Collective never was one. Until Saturday night. Or was it Sunday morning? Either way, perhaps it’s not too late.